Han character

from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
Han character
Han Unification
Unified Han
Unihan

   <character> (From the Han dynasty, 206 B.C.E to 25 C.E.)  One
   of the set of {glyphs} common to Chinese (where they are
   called "hanzi"), Japanese (where they are called {kanji}), and
   Korean (where they are called {hanja}).

   Han characters are generally described as "ideographic", i.e.,
   picture-writing; but see the reference below.

   Modern Korean, Chinese and Japanese {fonts} may represent a
   given Han character as somewhat different glyphs.  However, in
   the formulation of {Unicode}, these differences were {folded},
   in order to conserve the number of {code positions} necessary
   for all of {CJK}.  This unification is referred to as "Han
   Unification", with the resulting character repertoire
   sometimes referred to as "Unihan".

   Unihan reference at the Unicode Consortium
   (http://charts.unicode.org/unihan.html).

   [John DeFrancis, "The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy",
   University of Hawaii Press, 1984].

   (1998-10-18)